Eminem: Prescription drug Ambien ‘wiped out five years of my life’

The 'Recovery' rapper was also 'two hours from dying' after overdosing in 2007

Eminem has spoken out about how the prescription drug Ambien caused him lose huge chunks of his memory.

The rapper also says that the sedative contributed to a four year long stretch of writer’s block. Eminem says that the pills were ‘wiping out brain cells’. He added:

…a lot of my memory is gone. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken Ambien, but it’s kind of a memory-eraser. That shit wiped out five years of my life. People will tell me stories, and it’s like, “I did that?” I saw myself doing this thing on [television network] BET recently, and I was like, “When was that?”

In the interview with Rolling Stone, Eminem said that he kept some of his writing from that period and that: “It fucking creeps me out. Letters all down the page – it was like my hand weighed 400 pounds. I have all that shit in a box in my closet. As a reminder that I don’t ever want to go back.”

During the peak of his drug addiction, he revealed that he was taking up to 60 Valium and 30 Vicodin pills a day. In 2007, he overdosed on methadone. “The doctors told me I’d done the equivalent of four bags of heroin,” says Eminem. “They said I was about two hours from dying.”

The ‘Recovery’ artist revealed that Elton John was one of the people who helped him to overcome his addictions. “He usually calls me once a week to check on me, just to make sure I’m on the up-and-up,” says Eminem. “He was actually one of the first people I called when I wanted to get clean.”